


This Prison and the Next

by Hawksquill



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Canonical Character Death, Community: HPFT, Complete, Gen, Horcruxes, Interrogation, M/M, Moral Ambiguity, Moral Dilemmas, Morally Ambiguous Character, Non-Graphic Torture, Non-Graphic Violence, Nurmengard Castle (Harry Potter), One Shot, Past Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald, Past Relationship(s), Sympathetic Villain (sort of), The Deathly Hallows, repentant villain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28090938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawksquill/pseuds/Hawksquill
Summary: When Albus Dumbledore refuses to "come quietly" and escapes the Ministry's clutches in a flash of bright light, he goes to the only place they won't look for him: the tallest tower of Nurmengard.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Comments: 3
Kudos: 51





	This Prison and the Next

**Author's Note:**

> Written for hotel california's most overused line challenge on FanficTalk!

A sudden burst of bright light erupted in the musty darkness of the cell, blinding the prisoner. He fumbled for a wand that was no longer in his pocket. It had not been there for decades.

“Who’s there?” he wheezed. Cripes, is that what his voice sounded like now?

There was no response. A figure was standing near the arrow-slit window, his silhouette thrown into sharp relief by the harsh shadows cast by the bright light. He must have been an old man, because he sported a long, neat beard and wore robes cut in the old fashion, but he stood upright as any young man.

“How did you get in here? Speak now, or I’ll call the guards!”

“I apologize for disturbing you. The guards do not know I am here, and it would be a great service to me if you did not inform them. I...I had nowhere else to go.”

“Albus? Is that you?” He squinted. Beneath the wrinkles and milk-white beard was that crooked nose and those glistening blue eyes that turned down at the corners. Albus.

“It’s me, Gellert.”

Gellert’s laughter was sharp and cold as a knife, and Albus looked as stricken as if Grindelwald had stabbed him.

“Well I am not certain what you find so amusing. If my presence is unwelcome, you need only say a word and I will be gone.”

This only made Gellert laugh harder, until he was doubled over on his narrow cot with tears running down his unshaven face.

“No, no, it’s only...do I look as old as that? Just look at the pair of us. I’ve blinked and we’ve turned into old codgers without my noticing!”

“Oh, that,” Albus chuckled, “Some of us who have not been imprisoned without access to a mirror have had to confront our own aging faces every day for the past fifty years.”

"Goodness, has it been fifty years!? I have to say I thought you’d look more distinguished by now.” They fell so easily back into their old rapport that for a moment Gellert forgot that it had been fifty years, forgot even the circumstances under which they had last parted.

“I could say the same for you!” Albus lifted a hand as if to touch Gellert’s grizzled whiskers, then let it fall back down at his side.

"So how have you been keeping that bright young mind of yours occupied for fifty years? I assume you've long since finished that ambitious plan you had to develop your own schema for formulating new spell incantations. And written an opera or five?”

“Oh, I grew tired of opera after writing my first. Poetry was slightly better, that saw me through a good few years.” Those old hobbies felt like a lifetime ago. Gellert realized that he had in fact passed a lifetime in this old stone tower - the young man he had been was nothing but an acquaintance now. Albus must be the only person who knew or cared about that person anymore.

“No, now I mostly sit and wait for death. I can’t convince the guards to kill me; even the youngest and stupidest won’t take bribes. Kids these days, no idea what they’re teaching them anymore. You’d have been hard pressed to find a lad who couldn’t be bribed in our day,” he shrugged.

"That's a pity for you, but I must selfishly admit I am glad for my own sake."

"Well I've been here all along, so you only have yourself to blame for depriving yourself of my excellent company. I have to say after you didn’t pay me a visit for the first few years, I had no choice but to be begrudgingly impressed with the so-called defensive improvements they’ve made to this old pile of bricks. If you could not come…” Or _would_ not come. Gellert let two unspoken questions dangle between them like Albus’s outstretched hand. If you could have come all along, why didn’t you? And why come now?

Albus ignored both questions and instead answered the one Gellert did not ask, the one he did not even care about.

“Fawkes can always be relied upon to get me out of even the worst of scrapes. Although sometimes he only plunges me into some fresh trouble, as I’m sure you remember.”

“Fawkes, of course! Hello, old chap.” The bright ball of light dimmed and now Albus’s trusty phoenix was clearly discernible at its epicenter. Fawkes flew across the cell and came to rest on Gellert’s arm. Albus watched Gellert stroke the bird in silence.

“So you were in a scrape and Fawkes brought you to me? Old habits die hard, I suppose.”

Albus only nodded. His gazed flitted around the cell as if he were looking for something, but Gellert knew he was hardly seeing what was in front of him. His thoughts were darting even faster than his eyes, and in his mind he was far away from Gellert and the cell.

“It’s that bad?”

“I’ve had something of a...disagreement with the Ministry.”

“Well, that’s hardly anything new, now is it?”

Albus’s eyes settled on Gellert for a moment, his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

‘The guards let me see the occasional newspaper, and I can hear them talking,” Gellert explained with a shrug.

“Ah. And how much do you know about Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort?”

“This Voldemort character seems like a typical upstart git. Not so unlike how you and I used to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started looking for the Hallows, you know, just like us. I’d be careful, if I were you.” Gellert allowed his gaze to linger on Albus’s robes. The other man moved a hand protectively over one of the pockets.

“So you still have it, then.”

“It’s so much worse than the Hallows, Gellert. He’s been making horcruxes.”

“Horcruxes? The fool! As if anyone would want to be immortal with a life like that. It will be unbearable. He’ll end up destroying them himself, I’d bet you anything. It’s always people like us who long for death the most.” _After the youth and glamor and bravado fades away. When you only have yourself for company. When your hours waking and sleeping are haunted by all the lives you destroyed when you were young and stupid._

“On the night he murdered the Potters, I think he...he accidentally made Harry a horcrux. A piece of Harry, at least.”

“Cor,” Gellert whistled, “You’re going to have to kill your precious poster boy.”

“I am not going to kill him, Voldemort will do it. And Harry will choose to die, in the end. The prophecy says…”

“You may not be the one holding the wand, Albus, but you’ll have killed him. I’m sure you remember my trial.” Gellert had only directly killed a fraction of the people whose murders he was tried for. And it did not matter who had been holding the wand; they all haunted him just the same.

“I cannot believe that, that Harry must die. I’ve been pondering it for months - there must be something I’ve missed, I just haven’t found it yet. Another way…” Albus pressed his back to the damp, weeping stone wall of the cell and sank until he was crouched on the floor, his head in his hands.

“Albus, you must do this. For the greater good.”

“How dare you say that to me?” Albus hissed.

“I don’t attempt to defend what I did,” Gellert held his hands in front of him, surrendering to Albus’s anger, “But the reasoning is sound. Your reasoning. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices to do what needs to be done. Sometimes we sacrifice our own principles, our own conscience. Sometimes we make the right sacrifices for what we believe is the greater good, and sometimes we do not. History may be unkind to you because of your choice. I suspect it won’t be as unkind as it will be to me. But this is the right thing to do, Albus.”

“Why should I believe you? You killed hundreds of people, Gellert.”

“And I will live with that regret for the rest of my days. I know what it is to take a life and regret it, hundreds of times over. And I am telling you that you must make that choice, and you must live with that regret, and you will have done it for better reasons than I did. Taking that life, living with that regret, it’s better than doing nothing.”

“I do not know. I...I do not know.” Albus’s narrow shoulders were wracked with sobs.

“You know what you have to do. Or you wouldn’t have come to me.”

* * *

His second visitor came in silence and darkness. But Gellert was expecting him.

“Hello, Voldemort.” Gellert did not rise from his cot, where he was reclined with his fingers entwined behind his head.

There was a surprised hiss, and then the shadows in one corner of the cell shifted and coalesced into a figure in a dark robe, the hood hanging low over a pale face.

“Grindelwald. I suppose you know why I am here?”

“Oh, yes. You’re several years late, actually. Rather rude of you.”

“And am I correct in assuming that it is no longer in your possession?”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Gellert gestured around the dim cell, with its small table, candles burnt down to the nub, and piss bucket. If he wanted to look for the Elder Wand in the tallest tower of Nurmengard he was more than welcome to, but he’d be even more of a fool than he seemed.

“But you know where it is.”

“Who do you take me for, boy? Of course I know where it is.”

“Then we can do this the easy way or the hard way, old man.” Voldemort reached a spindly, pale hand into his robes and retrieved a wand.

“Oh, the easy way, thank you very much.”

“I am glad that even in your senility, you can be reasoned with.”

Gellert inclined his head in a shallow bow.

“So? Where is it?”

“Oh, no, you see, I said the easy way.”

“And I ordered you to tell me the location of the Elder Wand. And unless you oblige, I’ll be forced to do things the hard way.”

“I see that you still misunderstand me. I’ll take the torture and death, please. You see, it would be much harder for me to overcome my utter revulsion of you for long enough to tell you where the wand is.”

“You fool! Crucio.” The pain was instantaneous and all-consuming, like every bone in his body was breaking and every inch of his skin was on fire. His screams bounced against the walls of his cell, creating strange echoes.

“Has that changed your mind, old man?”

“Only strengthened my resolve!” Gellert panted, “That was easy in comparison to what I would inflict on the world by obliging you.”

“Crucio!”

They taunted each other again and again until dawn was beginning to break through the sliver of window that had been Gellert’s only glimpse of the outside world for the past fifty years. And still Gellert refused to yield, exhausted and sore though he was. _See, Albus, you are not the only one who can sacrifice yourself for the greater good. You and Potter and me, we are the same. There are hard choices and we have made them. And mine is the hardest of all, for I shall have none of your glory. And yet after all we have done to each other, I would still rather die than betray you._

“This is your last chance, fool.” Gellert could feel Voldemort’s knot of frustration tensing into a tight ball of rage. He knew from the way Voldemort’s grip changed on his wand that it was true; this was his last chance; death was at hand. He had longed for it for so many years, and yet he still felt a moment’s hesitation.

Then he spat in Voldemort’s face.

“Avada kedavra!”

Gellert closed his eyes and waited for whatever was to come. It likely would not be paradise for the likes of him, he knew. If he was lucky, perhaps he would get some peace, a perpetual state of blank nothingness. And even if he was unlucky, at least he would be free of this cell, if only for a moment before arriving at his next prison.


End file.
